Vodafone Qatar: customers rise by 11%

Vodafone Qatar has said it is continuing to grow its share of the mobile telecom market in Qatar with customer numbers rising by 11 percent over the past year. It said it had reached a record 837,233 customers on March 31, the company’s financial year-end. This represented 47 percent of the population of Qatar who are now using Vodafone’s services, the telco said in a statement. It added that customer growth this year had been driven by enhancements to the mobile network and the launch of innovative promotions and services such as the “Swalif” local calling offer and BlackBerry on Prepaid. Richard Daly, CEO, Vodafone Qatar, said: "We’re proud of the continued growth of our customer base, which has been supported by the completion of our mobile network deployment. "We now have nationwide coverage, excellent voice quality and a very impressive experience for customers accessing the internet on their Vodafone devices. The challenging start-up phase is now behind us and we are looking forward to welcoming even more customers onto our network." In January, the firm, an affiliate of London-listed Vodafone, made a net loss of QR122m ($33.5m) for the third quarter, according to Reuters calculations. This compares with a loss of QR144m in the same period a year ago. On Sunday, its rival Qatar Telecom was ordered by the telecom's regulator over the information it has sent customers about its BlackBerry service The Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) said it had investigated complaints from consumers about "confusion and incorrect information" about Qtel's Hala BlackBerry service. "ictQATAR has established that Qtel has communicated confusing and/or incorrect information to its customers about data usage limits and charges that may apply when those limits are exceeded," it said in a statement.